Of Working Lights and Cigarettes
by Spartangal22
Summary: After arriving in Alexandria, Daryl finds himself wondering what the point of the place is. Turns out, he's not the only one. A character study of Abraham and Daryl.


"You got a cigarette?"

Daryl cracked one eye open and squinted into the light - _fake light, electricity, that was going to take some getting used to_ \- overhead. He'd never even had electricity before the Turn. _This is supposed to be normal?_

A lumbering red head stepping over him, blocking the light, and Daryl sat up, grumbling. "Is that how _civilized_ people go around? Just wake people up to ask for a cigarette?"

Abraham scratched his arm and shrugged. "Damn near stepped on ya. Didn't think you'd fall asleep on the porch, to be honest. Not when we've got real beds now."

Yeah, they had real beds. Supposedly he had one inside too, down the hall from the room Rick shared with Lil' Asskicker, across the hall from Michonne's. Glenn and Maggie were in there too somewhere, and Carol and Carl. The others were in the house next door. They'd all spent the first night camped out in the living room together, but apparently 24 hours was all it took for these people to fall right back to where they belonged.

So Daryl camped out on the porch, right where he belonged. He stood. "It ain't bad; be kinda nice, if that light would go out. There are worse places to sleep."

"Yeah." Abraham didn't elaborate on where those places might have been for him, but Daryl figured they couldn't have been too different from where he'd slept in the past. After a while, everyone's story was pretty much the same. _Except these people. They've always had the beds._ "But do you? Got a cigarette?"

He always had cigarettes. Ever since the beginning, whenever he and Merle would loot a convenient store or a house, Merle checked for pills and Daryl got the cigarettes. It was partly to piss his brother off, at first; Merle hated the smoke, but Daryl hated those pills. Seemed fair. Daryl kept the habit even without Merle, though - everyone had a thing. Michonne picked up comic books and gave them to Carl; Maggie liked applesauce whenever they could find it; Glenn always looked for a clean baseball cap. After a while, they all just looked out for each other, and whenever someone found a package of cigarettes, they'd send it Daryl's way. The world would run out of them eventually, but he could roll his own. He'd planted some tobacco back on the prison, when Rick was still Farmer Rick, and no one thought twice about it. Daryl glanced down at the potted tulips next to the window. He wondered what the people here would think if he tried that again.

"Thanks," Abraham said gruffly as Daryl passed one over. He offered him a match too, but Abraham already had one handy. Daryl thought Abraham might leave then, go back inside or go back to his house, but he just leaned back and closed his eyes. "Rosita doesn't like when I smoke. Says it'll send me to an early grave. Earlier than what, I asked her?" He chuckled. "Hell of a few days, huh?"

"Just hell."

Abraham glanced sideways at him. "Yeah, guess that's true." He sighed. "I've been here before," he said suddenly.

Daryl lit a cigarette for himself. "Here?"

"Yeah, here. Alexandria. I was stationed at an army base couple miles north, and came down on the weekends sometimes. I met my wife at a bar just outside the city…" He trailed off.

Daryl twirled the burned out match between his fingers. "My brother was in the army," he said. Abraham raised an eyebrow.

"No kidding? Where at?"

Daryl shrugged. Abraham was a real military man, not the kind who punched officers in the face after basic training and then spent the next year and a half in prison. "He was a sniper."

Abraham looked mildly impressed. "Huh. Ain't that something." A pause. "I didn't know you had a brother."

Daryl took a long drag from his cigarette. "He made it to the prison."

"I had a sister," Abraham said. "Didn't live around here, though. She was out in L.A. No idea what happened to her."

Daryl said nothing. He didn't really want to have any long talks about dead relatives. If they started down that road, they'd never stop. Hell, they could go back inside, heat up that cozy fireplace, gather the group, and they could all talk about how much who they missed. Wouldn't that be fun? He thought of Carol, of Rick, of Sasha and Maggie. He didn't know who Glenn had lost, but the kid probably had a family somewhere that was dead now. In a way, Daryl was lucky that most of his family had been assholes. Less people to love meant less people to lose.

"You and your wife live in a place like this?" Daryl waved his hand around the suburban paradise surrounding them, and Abraham chuckled again.

"Hell, no. Ellen and I lived in military housing until A.J. was born, then we found some rat-shit apartment and stayed there a few years. Bought a house eventually, when Becca was a few years old, but nothing like this."He crossed the porch and looked out. "I didn't think places like this were still out there."

Daryl grew up in a town poorer than dirt, and his family was the poorest one there. They didn't even live in the town, but in a cabin on the outskirts until his mom burnt it down with her inside, then they moved out even further. Will Dixon were never quite in the woods, (Merle did, and Daryl moved in with him when he was sixteen). He was just far enough outside the town to make them the white trash family that every other poor house could look down at - literally. They lived at the bottom of a hill. _At least we're not the Dixon's,_ they could say, and did. His was the house that kids used to dare each other to get near, then run away laughing.

But not far from the poor town was a nicer one, a neighborhood kind of like this one. Daryl's mom took him in there every once in a while when she was a live to visit some cousin or other of hers that lived there. The cousin had a kid Daryl's age, but he cried if he fell down, cried if his favorite toy car broke, cried if his mom left the room.

Daryl hated those trips, and the crying kid that came with them, but his mom kept bringing him along. Finally, on one of the last times he went out there, he and the kid (whose name he could never remember - it was something short, like _Bo_ or _Duke_ ) were going down the street to some old lady who Bo/Duke said had candy. Daryl hated walking down those streets; he always felt like he needed to wipe his shoes to use the sidewalk, the place was so clean. When they got to the old lady's house, she hugged Bo/Duke and handed him some candy she'd made, and then glanced at Daryl and handed more to Bo/Duke and told him to share with his friend. "He ain't my friend," Daryl had muttered, but he doubted either of them heard.

Bo/Duke shared - grudgingly - and Daryl asked why she hadn't just given to him herself.

"Cause she probably doesn't want to get fleas from you," Bo/Duke said matter-of-factly. "Or lice."

Daryl glared at him. "I don't got fleas or lice!"

"Don't _have_ ," he corrected, the little smart-ass. "And you probably do and just don't know it. You don't know a lot of things, but Mama says it's not your fault you're so ignorant."

Daryl pushed the kid, and he fell down the perfectly paved road and fractured his wrist. He made the fracture worse, the way he clutched it to himself as he ran home. Daryl could have told him how to hold it, if he weren't so _ignorant_.

He didn't get invited back.

The candy was bad anyway.

When everything first went to Hell, he and Merle had gone through that neighborhood again. Some people were still holed up in their homes, waiting for reinforcements to come in and rescue them, and Daryl's curiosity got the better of him and he went to Bo/Duke's old house. Bo/Duke had gone to college, he knew, but he'd come back. Guess that education of his hadn't gotten him far. When Daryl found what was left of him in his living room, all he could think was, _Maybe you should have spent a little more time with me_.

Merle had laughed as they walked around those blocks. "Not so neat and clean anymore, is it?" The place looked worse than Will Dixon's yard had ever been. It hadn't made Daryl happy, or victorious, it just made him realize something: People like Bo/Duke, that old lady, the people in that neighborhood, they were meant for this world. He was.

So why was Alexandria still here?

"Not sure why it's here," Daryl said finally.

Abraham blew some smoke into the night. "Walls, I guess. Walls and a lot of luck."

"That's _how_ ," Daryl argued. He didn't know why he was arguing. He could have just dropped the subject; then Abraham would have left, and Daryl could have gone back to sleep.

"Heh. Guess that's true." He spit. "Hell, I don't know. I'm not a deep man. Why'd my family die? Why'd Eugene make it all this way if he ain't a scientist? Why this place and not Washington D.C.?"

 _Why Noah and not Beth?_ He didn't blame Noah, not a bit. Kid was a survivor; he was tougher than he looked. But Beth had been too. _Why me and not Merle?_

Merle had always been the big brother, and not just in size and not just in age. He was tougher, faster, stronger. Daryl was smarter. He was quieter, which was good for hunting, but Merle was louder, which was good for scaring people away. Merle woulda hated this place, he knew. He woulda taken one look at it, laughed, and walked back into the woods. It's what Daryl had wanted to do. But he hadn't.

Why Alexandria?

" _Deanna_ gave me a job," Abraham continued. Daryl couldn't help but smile at the way Abraham said her name - like it was some foreign word to him, and he didn't trust what people told him it meant. "Construction crew, she said. Guess she thinks I look good for hauling stuff around."

 _Dumb job_ , Daryl thought, but at least he _had_ a job. Deanna gave him…nothing. Told him to "sit tight" and she'd think of something. "Why are you here, Mr. Dixon?" She'd asked. Funny. He was trying to figure out the same about her.

"Don't know why they need a construction crew," Daryl said. "What're you gonna do, move the fences?"

"Something like that. Build houses, maybe." Abraham thought for a second. "I'd rather kill things."

Daryl took another drag. "Me too."

Suddenly, Abraham started laughing. "What'd you think _Deanna_ would say if we told her that?"

"Maybe hold a panel or something. Send us to therapy. Bet they got a therapist here, somewhere." They had damn near everything else.

"Think they've ever killed anyone?"

"These people?" Daryl scoffed. "Nah. Probably never even killed a walker."

Abraham looked uncomfortable at that thought. "How's that possible? How can you live this long in this world and not… Gah. No use thinking about it, I guess. I'm not a deep man," he said again.

Daryl looked around them. "What happens when the walls come down?"

Abraham glanced at him. "Think they will?"

"Happened at the prison."

"Guess that's why they got a construction crew."

Didn't matter. Walls would come down eventually, and everyone inside would die. Everyone except Rick's group. Some of them might go down, but most of them would make it, and probably one or two of the Alexandrians, just by luck. And then they'd start over, go back into the wilderness and look for another place.

So why bother stopping at Alexandria? What was the _point?_

"You got a job yet?" Abraham asked.

"No. She don't know what to do with me. I don't really want her telling me what to do."

Abraham chuckled. "You can babysit Judith."

Daryl grinned at that. "Poor kid."

Abraham took one last drag and tossed the cigarette to the ground, stamping it under his foot. " _Deanna_ probably wouldn't like that," he muttered. "Think no littering is a rule?"

"Probably got a jail to throw you in somewhere."

"I done a lot worse than that to earn me some jail time," he muttered.

"We all have. Except them." _Why them?_

He started down the stairs, then paused. "Rosie thinks we're lucky. That we found this place." He raised an eyebrow at Daryl. "What d'ya think about that?"

Daryl still had his cigarette, and took his time answering. "I think it's just another place to sleep for a while."

Abraham stretched. "Yeah, me too. But it's better than a dump. Thanks for the cigarette."

Daryl nodded, and Abraham headed next door. Just in time, too; he could hear Rosita yelling for him from somewhere inside. _He ain't gonna get hurt here_ , Daryl thought first. _Don't shout_ , he thought then. _You'll bring the walkers_.

But no walkers came. There were walls, he remembered, and doors with locks, and lights that actually worked. _Why Alexandria?_

The door behind him opened. "You coming in here?" Rick asked. He had Lil' Asskicker in one arm, and she was half asleep on his shoulder. _She'll be the toughest one of us all_ , Daryl thought.

But she didn't have to be tough tonight. Tonight she could sleep, and no one had to worry about where she'd be in the morning. Daryl put the cigarette out on his thumb, ignoring Rick's glare as he did so, and shrugged. "Pass her here," he said, and Rick handed the little girl over. She wasn't totally asleep yet, and she nuzzled her face into his neck and gripped his shoulder as he carried her back inside.

Babysitter wouldn't be such a bad job. For a time. While the walls held.

* * *

 **The thing about "The Walking Dead" is that there are so many characters, it's almost impossible for all of them to interact meaningfully. Two that (to my knowledge) have had little to no interaction are Daryl and Abraham, and I actually think they'd get along pretty well (though the conversation might involve more grunting than words.) So this was my attempt to put together two characters who don't have a lot to say in an environment where they both probably feel more than a little uncomfortable.**

 **This started as a character study more of Abraham than Daryl, but I've never written Abraham before and I found it easier to play him off of Daryl than to write him alone. I like Abraham a lot, and wish he got more screen time.**

 **Proposal to anyone who is interested - I am trying to get back into writing TWD fan fiction, but since I'm not watching the show right now, I don't have a lot of inspiration. If anyone has a challenge/idea they want to throw at me, let me know in the review or send me a message and I'll give it a shot. As always, I own nothing.**


End file.
